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Kullroc Glacier
A Terrible Beauty A wall of dark-blue rises from the shallow water. On approach, the glacier is revealed to be riven with dark gashing cracks that enter miles into the glacier face. These crevices appear to be filled with fine teeth shaped of hoarfrost, frozen mist that came into contact with the glacier. The echoing shriek of cracking ice is omnipresent but not overwhelming, the same distant volume is maintained even after traveling miles up to the glacier. A novel sound quality that covers the danger of the ice cracking beneath the unsuspecting traveler. The ice wall rises three hundred feet in the air, broken up by slippery balconies and dotted with abandoned climbing hooks and torn rope of past expeditions. Cracks in the ice range from a few inches wide to chasms that stretch ten yards, all of which disappear into the fathomless depths of the glacier. The glacier's blue color comes from the extreme density of the ice, allowing one to peer into the glacier and see inside for a hundred yards before it becomes obscured by a deep blue haze. Dark shapes are silhouetted even deeper in the ice, prisoners of the elemental. Dangers of the Glacier While the continent has a cold harshness to it, the surface and subsurface of the glacier is supernaturally chilling, causing feet to stick to the surface if left touching for more than a minute. The air between the cracks is like being immersed in ice water and only held back by magical protection. Wind Gusts The top of the glacier can be particularly hazardous as the huge flat land enables frightening gusts of wind to thrust unsuspecting explorers into open cracks. Glacier Cracks Falling into such cracks is lethal unless the explorers are prepared or especially hardy. Exposure to the under-surface of the glacier causes 5 Cold-damage every minute; There are some cracks that don't have this supernatural coldness to them and seemingly even provide shelter against the mundane winter winds. Often, a person who falls into the crack disappears into the glacier forever, their bodies never being recovered. At other times, the crack may narrow enough that they become stuck, requiring a feat of Athletics to escape. Dangers and Opportunities Roaming Beasts Frozen Fauna Resources A Face in the Ice While many locals will speak about the spirits in the landscape, Kullroc is well known to be sentient. Universities believe it to be an ancient, but simple, elemental while local communities entreat the Kullroc with offerings fit for a god. The glacier's intelligence reveals itself in its response to visitors. The glacier is observed to allow locals and visitors that make offerings to make safe treks across its surface and plumb its outer depths. Its displeasure has been confirmed mostly by visiting skeptics whose expedition supplies are taken suddenly by miles-deep crevices opening underneath them. There is not an official record of the glacier revealing its "face" to visitors to communicate directly though some will come back claiming of having been revealed deep prophecies. These "researchers" also tend to sell bottles of water they've collected from glacier springs at exorbitant prices. Pact of the Lonely Dream Throughout the Blood Grotto, some people who find themselves lost and isolated begin having dreams of ice and darkness. Somewhere in that freezing blackness comes a warm voice offering them encouraging words. For some of these rare dreamers, the voice offers a weapon to strike at those who have ignored them. Days after waking, those who accepted the weapon in dream find a familiar object in the waking world, it having found them through mysterious circumstances. Perhaps hidden deep in snow until the dreamer fell besides it, instinctively grasping the buried handle of a dagger as a brute comes to gloat over her. Sometimes a dreamer thanks the ice dream for meat as he brings down a thin wolf, only to discover that where the wolf's heart should be, a strange cold rod is in its place. These warlocks are proud loners and hermits, having discarded the false relationships of their fellows. They know that up in the far north, deep in the freezing ice of Kullroc Glacier, is a true companion who offered them kindness when no one else would, the shared dreamer of the Lonely Dream. Category:Locations